Chapter 7: The lie
The door swung inward just as Ella wrenched her bandaged hand free from Ben’s grip. She scrambled backwards, her knees hitting the hard floor with a painful thump, her breath tearing out of her in a ragged gasp. Her hand felt alien – clammy, sticky beneath the gauze, burning with the phantom pressure and heat.
James stood silhouetted in the doorway, the brighter light from the hall haloing his frame. His brow was furrowed, confusion warring with annoyance. "What the hell?" he repeated, his gaze snapping from Ella crouched on the floor to Ben, who had turned away, one hand casually adjusting the waistband of his dark sweatpants as he bent to pick up a stray t-shirt. Ben’s movements were smooth, unhurried, a stark contrast to Ella’s frantic scramble.
"Looking for bandages," Ella blurted, her voice pitched too high. She held up her wrapped hand, a visible shield. "Cut myself washing dishes earlier. Couldn’t find the box in the bathroom." The lie felt thick and clumsy on her tongue. Her cheeks flamed.
James’s eyes narrowed slightly, lingering on her flushed face, then darting to Ben’s broad back. "Bandages. In Ben's room?"
Ben straightened, turning around. His face was composed, only a faint flush high on his cheekbones and the lingering intensity in his dark eyes betraying the chaos of moments before. A faint, almost imperceptible damp spot darkened the front of his grey sweatpants. Ella quickly looked away, her stomach churning. "Found 'em," Ben said, his voice unnervingly calm. He gestured lazily towards the open first-aid kit on his cluttered desk. "Told her she was in the wrong place. Bathroom’s stocked." He met James’s gaze, a ghost of a smirk playing on his lips. "She seemed… flustered. Needed a minute, maybe? Calm down?"
The way he said it, laced with subtle implication, made Ella want to scream. She pushed herself up, legs trembling. "I’m fine," she insisted, forcing a shaky smile for James. "Just clumsy. And the blood startled me. That’s all." She clutched her bandaged hand to her chest like a talisman against sin. The roughness of the gauze scratched her palm, a constant, shaming reminder of the slick heat beneath it moments ago. The scent of pine and leather, always subtle in Ben’s room, now felt suffocating, mixed with a sharper, muskier trace she desperately tried not to identify.
James stepped fully into the room, his expression softening slightly as he looked at Ella’s hand, though suspicion still shadowed his eyes. "Jeez, Ella, you okay? That looked deep?" He moved towards her, reaching out, but she flinched back instinctively, a tiny recoil she instantly regretted.
Ben’s smirk widened, almost imperceptibly. James stopped, his hand dropping, confusion deepening into something sharper. Hurt? Annoyance? Ella couldn’t tell.
"It’s nothing," Ella said again, too quickly. "Just a nick. Ben… Ben helped me wrap it. Tight." The word ‘tight’ echoed in her head, recalling the unrelenting pressure of his grip forcing her hand around him. She felt sick.
"Right," James said slowly. He looked between them again, the air crackling with Ben’s unspoken challenge and Ella’s palpable terror. "Pizza’s going cold. Thought you’d vanished." He kept his tone light, but the undercurrent was unmistakable. "Everything… okay in here?"
"Peachy," Ben drawled, picking up a half-empty water bottle from his desk and taking a long swig. His throat worked. Ella watched a bead of water escape his lips and trace a path down his jawline, disappearing into the collar of his t-shirt. She tore her gaze away, focusing desperately on a knot in the wood grain of Ben’s desk. "Just having a little chat with Ella. Seems she needed someone else to talk to for a minute. Someone less… invested?" He raised an eyebrow at James.
James’s jaw tightened. "Less invested? What’s that supposed to mean?"
Ella couldn’t breathe. The room felt airless. Ben was pushing, deliberately stoking the fire, enjoying James’s confusion and her utter unraveling. "Nothing," she interjected desperately, stepping towards James, trying to block his view of Ben. "He means nothing. Just… just stupid banter. Let’s just go eat, okay? I’m starving." She forced cheer into her voice, a brittle sound. She reached for James’s arm with her unbandaged hand, pulling him gently towards the door. Her touch felt like a lie.
James allowed himself to be guided, but his body was stiff, resistant. He threw one last, searching look at Ben, who just leaned back against his desk, arms crossed, that infuriating, knowing look still in his eyes. The damp spot on his sweatpants seemed to glare at Ella.
As Ella pulled James out of Ben’s bedroom and into the brighter hallway, the relative normalcy felt jarring, artificial. The sound of a sitcom laugh track drifted from the living room TV. She could smell the greasy tang of pepperoni. But the scent of pine and leather and him clung to her, a toxic perfume. Her bandaged hand throbbed, not with the small cut from the glass, but with the searing memory of Ben’s hardness, the wet heat soaking through the cotton, the guttural command in his voice. Stroke it.
James stopped walking just outside the living room doorway. He turned to her, his face serious. The easygoing boyfriend was gone, replaced by someone wary, watchful. "What was that really about, El?" he asked quietly, his voice low so it wouldn’t carry. "You looked… terrified. And Ben…" He trailed off, his gaze dropping pointedly to her bandaged hand, then back to her eyes. "Did he do something? Say something?"
Ella’s heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird. The truth was a monstrous thing, clawing at her throat. He made me touch him. He forced my hand. I felt him… But the words wouldn't come. To say it meant acknowledging it, making it real outside the suffocating confines of that pine-and-leather room. It meant destroying James, destroying everything she thought she believed in. And underneath the terror and the shame, a treacherous pulse of something else beat in time with the memory – a dark, addictive thrill that horrified her.
"No," she whispered, the lie ash in her mouth. She met James’s eyes, trying to project sincerity, but she knew her own gaze was skittish, filled with the nervous energy that always betrayed her. "He didn’t… do anything. I told you, I was just flustered from the cut. And Ben… he was just being Ben. Annoying. You know how he is." She attempted a weak smile. "Can we just… eat? Please?"
James studied her face for a long, agonizing moment. Doubt warred with concern, suspicion with a desire to believe her. Finally, he sighed, the tension in his shoulders easing slightly, but not vanishing completely. He ran a hand through his hair. "Okay. Okay, fine. Pizza." He gestured towards the living room. "But seriously, Ella… if he ever…"
"He didn't," she cut in, too sharply. She softened her tone. "He really didn't, James. Promise."
He nodded slowly, not entirely convinced, but willing, for now, to let it drop. He put a tentative arm around her shoulders. The contact felt wrong, alien, after Ben’s possessive grip. Ella forced herself not to stiffen, leaning into him slightly as they walked into the living room. The scent of pizza grease couldn't quite mask the phantom scent clinging to her skin.
Ben was already there, sprawled on the larger sofa, a slice of pizza in one hand, the TV remote in the other. He’d changed his sweatpants. The damp spot was gone, but the memory of it, the knowledge of what caused it, screamed silently in the room. He glanced up as they entered, his gaze lingering on Ella with that same unnerving intensity, a silent challenge, a reminder. A faint, knowing curve touched his lips as his eyes flickered down to her bandaged hand resting on the arm of the sofa, then back up to meet her terrified gaze.
You know what happened, those dark eyes seemed to say. And you liked it.
Ella looked away, focusing on the congealing cheese on her untouched slice of pizza. The laughter from the TV sounded hollow, distant. She was trapped between James’s wounded confusion and Ben’s predatory assurance, the weight of her lie and the searing truth imprinted on her skin pressing down on her, suffocating. The bandage itched furiously. She didn’t dare scratch it. Didn’t dare move. The pizza tasted like cardboard and guilt.